Piecing Everything Together.

Now that Vegan SJ is on Facebook as well I am trying to finally get around to old photos and blog posts. I'm going to cheat with this one though and send you to a link instead. VeganYumYum. Here is where you will find the tastiest little vegan doughnuts I have come across. They are so cakey and donughty and healthier than the real thing because they are baked.
Hubby and I were so naughty the night I made these that they became our dinner, non-vegan hubby likes silly dinners sometimes. They were just too damn good to resist, all hot and covered in cinnamon sugar.
Due to not having a doughnut pan as I haven't gotten around to getting one off Ebay yet, I used a mini muffin/cupcake pan and called the dough-nots!

You can't have just 1, trust me!

 

Slightly Narcissistic Perhaps...

This is my new badge I got at my Tupperware party today, I think its pretty cool!

So I can't be bothered putting up my recipes, and I haven't taken many photos, but I will tell you that we had Fruity Chickpea Balls, a Yum Cha selection and Brownie bottomed Peanut Butter Cheesecake from Vegan Pie in the Sky, YUM!!

Can Anybody Tell Me What Time it is? It's Lime Time.

I didn't really plan anything for dinner tonight, I was too busy blogging, facebooking and perusing my new cookbook. 

I remembered that I had a packet of Lentilicious's "Lime Time", it's kinda like a think lentil stew, which I served with steamed brown rice and broccoli, but I decided I wanted some Tofutti, Better Than Cream Cheese plopped on top, I don't know why, but I thought it made it!

Now I think I may have over cooked it a bit, and it kinda looked like gruel, luckily it didn't taste that way, so I didn't take a pic of it, so here's a pic of the packaging instead.

You can buy them online at Vegan Online or from Lentilicious's site, or from there you can also search for a stockist in your state, Tassie isn't listed, but I can tell you that the Trevallyn Grocer does stock them. They're about $7-$8 a pack.

NEW COOKBOOK!!

A couple of months back I pre-ordered a copy of Vegan Pie in the Sky which was co-written by Isa chandra from the amazing Post Punk Kitchen and Terry Hope Romeo.
It's the first time I ever bought a book without having read a review, seen a preview of recipes or before it had even been released for sale! I knew, however, it would be gold, especially considering her other books I own (pictured below) sure as heck are!

I can't wait to bake my first pie, though it will be tough choosing which one to start with, but I will post a report and pics when I do :)

It's Monday and I still Have 2 Days of my weekend Left!

On Saturday I blogged about the awesome weekend I was planning and the amazing tofu scramble I was loving for breakfast. I loved it so much that I planned on having it for breakfast on Sunday as well, but instead I got too busy cleaning my house before my family came over to worry about a silly little thing like sustenance!
Apart from the great flavours, and not actually tasting like tofu in the end, I figured out through Saturday just how fantastic HIGH protein meals are. I ate my breakfast at around 10 am and didn't even feel slightly peckish until 3 pm!
So I decided to get up and do it all again, only smaller this time, simply because I had a massive craving for a veggie dog for breakfast, bad I know!
So today I changed things a little, I made my scramble the same, but this time added kale, thyme, chives and oregano, I nearly added onion, but I didn't feel like crying this early in the morning! Also instead of toast I wrapped it in a flour tortilla and spread on some Tofutti, Better Than Cream Cheese.

It was even better today. I never liked cream cheese as a spread before I was vegan, and now I love the Tofutti stuff!

And after having had 2 boxes of chocolate soy milk, a veggie dog and a scramble wrap, I don't want to eat for the rest of the day!

Who am I kidding? I'll want a late lunch then dinner for sure! :-P

"Meat"balls.

A few nights back I was hungrily plodding around the kitchen trying to think of what to have for dinner. As I had had my weekend cut short by being called into work last week, I didn't have any really meal planner prep time, which I try to do!

Then I happily remembered that in the freezer I had a box of Redwood's meat free meatballs in the freezer which I get from my most favourite store in the world Vegan Online.

So I quickly grabbed them out and heated up my oven and made a kick arse marinara sauce and boiled some pasta.

Marinara Sauce

Ingredients:

• 1-2 tsp olive oil
• 1/2 - 1 onion diced
• 4 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 500g jar pasta sauce, I like Raguletto's Venitian herbs
• 1 400g tin diced tomatoes
• fresh oregano, fresh basil, salt, pepper and dried mixed herbs to taste 
• Pasta 

Method:

1. Heat oil in a saucepan.
2. Add onion and saute for 2-3 minutes.
3. Add garlic and saute fror 2 more minutes.
4. Add tomato paste and let it cook off, another few minutes.
5. Add fresh herbs, tomatoes and pasta sauce, mix thoroughly and let simmer until heated through.
6. Add salt, pepper and fresh herbs to taste, you may also want a little bit of sugar in it, depending how acidic it is. Let simmer for as long as you like, when you're happy with it serve.

You could also add red or white wine to the mix as well.

This was a really great base the next night for a pizza sauce, SOO YUMMY!

But here was the dish I made

There is easily 4 serves here, you really only need 5 or 6 meatballs per dish, especially when eating with pasta, bread and salad like we did. Actually we didn't have bread, we didn't need it! And they were a great lunch of leftovers as well :)

Now I think these are gluten free, but I can't be 100% certain, just (obviously) check the ingredients first.

I can't wait to put in my next order for these, I loved them so much, even just dipping them in BBQ sauce!

Not Quite Meatloaf.

Whilst I was busily blogging about my awesome breakfast this morning, I saw on my blog roll a new post from The Vegan Stoner for Lentil Loaf. I've 
been thinking about veganizing meatloaf, but was basically just too lazy! So when I saw this recipe this morning I got VERY excited!
My changes are bolded in this colour.

Lentil Loaf

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of cooked lentils (from 1 cup of dried)
• 1/2 an onion, chopped
• Hand full of walnuts, We don't like walnuts, so instead I used 1/2 a large apple, chopped
• 2 handfuls crushed crackers, I used 4 whole saladas                  
• 2 cups frozen veggies, I used a mix of peas, corn and spinach
• A sprinkling of garlic salt
• 4 Tbs apple sauce, I only had 3 Tbs worth, which is the other reason why I decided to use fresh apple as well
• 2 Tbs tomato sauce, I used 3
• I also added 1 Tbs of yellow/American mustard
• Ketchup is supposed to go on top, but I used sundried tomato chutney

Method:

1. Cook lentils.
2. Mash in onion and walnuts/apple and crackers.
3. Mix in all remaining ingredients.
4. Pack into a loaf tin.
5. Spread with tomato sauce/ketchup/chutney and bake for 40 minutes at 180oC.

Simple, easy and quite tasty.
My loaf pan was a bit small, so the remaining mixture got turned into patties.

A Weekend at Home!

I normally work on Saturdays, but this week I swapped my shift to help out a friend, which means I get FOUR whole days at home!!
At the moment I am thoroughly enjoying Rage, especially because it's very Hip-Hop heavy today. I'm also loving the fact that I had time to make a totally KICK ARSE breakfast of tofu scramble, not the prettiest thing to eat, but DAMN it was good!!
The rest of my plans for this wonderfully long weekend are gardening and FINALLY setting up my little veggie/herb garden, AND going to the shelter and picking up a little of baby foster kittens. Also catching up on all of my forgotten blog posts, AND LOTS of cooking!! 
Seriously, could it get ANY better?! Well I will also be popping down to the Evandale markets and catching up with the folks and my Grandmother who is staying with them this week as well, so a totally jam packed awesomeness-filled few days, WOOT WOOT!!

 Tofu Scramble.

Ingredients:

• 80-100g firm tofu, crumbled, I use Simply Better Foods Organic Tofu.
• 3-4 button mushrooms, sliced
• A good chunk of capsicum, sliced into small/bite sized pieces
• 1 Tbs nutritional yeast
• 1 Tbs American/yellow mustard
• 3 Tbs tomato sauce
• 2 slice of toast, I like Helga's Soy & Linseed bread,, or GF toast.

Method:

1. Prepare ingredients.
2. Heat pan med-high, u may want a little spray of oil just to coat your pan.
3. Toss all ingredients in, cook till mushies are wilted and flavours have infused the tofu.
4. Cook toast, dish scramble on top of it and if you like, as I very much do, have with a glass of chocolate soy milk. 

For anybody who thinks that vegans don't get enough protein, tell them to suck on this, it's 30g worth, that's approx 1/2 your daily protein requirement, HELLS YEAH BITCHES!!